A Competition Victory in Dunfermline!
We are thrilled to have won the extremely high profile project for a new Museum of Dunfermline for Fife Council. The announcement was made on the 19th July and Fife Council's own press release said "The design concept by Richard Murphy Architects was the most convincing of a very high quality field of entries to Fife Council's recent architectural competition. ...Richard's scheme displayed great cleverness and sophistication with superb potential for the gallery spaces and controlled long views out into the cityscape. His concept proposes a hinged or inset façade for the entrance on Abbot Street, which would certainly be a talking point in itself. It offers a distinctive and attractive entrance. The proposed elevation to the west had an architectural language and scale that related to the Carnegie Library, and respected the Abbot House and Abbey". The competition, organised by the RIAS, marks a revival of their competition unit and this is the first major project to be procured in this way. More details of the winning design can be seen on the new webpage.
Our First NHS Commission
As part of the team headed up by Interserve we are delighted to have been told that we have won a new project at Strathdevon Hospital in Fife. This is an eighteen bed secure dementia building to be built in the grounds of the hospital for Fife NHS trust. We have also been asked by the Trust to prepare a masterplan for the site as a whole. The building is a fast track design with the intention of being on site by January 2008.
A Major Planning Consent Achieved in Aberdeen
We are delighted that planning consent has been achieved for this £34 million project for a Radisson hotel and adjacent atrium office building on Justice Mill Lane. The project for Hazledene Estates Ltd was won in competition last summer and the planning application was submitted in April this year, making this not only our largest planning consent to date but also one of our speediest! Work is now well underway progressing warrant application and we are working with the appointed contractor Miller Construction (UK) Ltd for a site start in September.
New Nursery School
Planning has been submitted for a new nursery and after-school facilities for Edinburgh Academy on their Junior School Arboretum Road site. A new webpage displays the design and we anticipate a site start by June 2008.
Murray’s Mills, Ancoats, Manchester - Restarted
After a prolonged delay post planning we have now been commissioned to resume work on this interesting rehabilitation project for Grade II* listed derelict cotton mills in Richard Murphy's home town of Manchester for Burrell Inpartnership. The project will be progressed in phases with the "Old Mill" starting immediately and then the other two sides of the courtyard starting as later phases and the final new build side being the last to be completed. Work is expected to start on site in February 2009.
Coming soon ........ Haymarket, Edinburgh
Stand by in our next newsletter for images of this major redevelopment on the west side of Edinburgh city centre for Tiger Developments. The project consists of a five star hotel by ourselves, a three star hotel by Sutherland Hussey and three office buildings designed between ourselves and CDA. The whole site is master-planned by this office. To date, pre-planning application consultation with statutory bodies, local residents and amenity societies has all been very encouraging. A marketing suite has been established on the site on the corner of Morrison Street and Morrison Link - models and design development drawings can be seen there, opening times are Tuesday to Saturday 11.30 am to 7.00 pm.
Press
Our competition win in Dunfermline received widespread coverage in the local Edinburgh and Dunfermline press and also Scottish and British national magazines.
Both BD (20 July) and the Architects’ Journal (18 July) (the former calling its article - “Verona comes to Dunfermline Museum”) quoted Richard as saying - “…….. I hope to bring much of my academic work from my study on Scarpa’s Castelvecchio museum in Verona to the exhibition design”.
and Finally.....
Every time we do a competition (and there have been more than the average this year) we vow not to be up all night before the deadline. Somehow it never seems to quite works out like that. Dunfermline was no exception and here's a picture taken at 6.00 AM in our model making workshop of, left to right, model makers Dan, Nicola, Tersius and Tom with their Dunfermline model completed a full two hours ahead of schedule!! Upstairs, still labouring were Tim Parker, Piotr Kmiotczyk and competition co-ordinator Craig Amy.
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